This weekly roundup features arrests, criminal proceedings, and other reports alleging improper or questionable conduct by healthcare professionals.
Psychiatrist and “sexologist” Damian Jacob Markiewicz Sendler, whose published papers on bestiality and necrophilia made him a media darling, was exposed as a “serial fabulist” by a Gizmodo reporter. Among Sendler’s false claims: an MD/PhD from Harvard.
A Florida physician was sentenced to 13 years in prison as the 95th and final conspirator in the “Operation Ice Queen” investigation, which revealed he was operating a pill mill from his home as a part of the drug trafficking scheme. (WTXL Tallahassee)
The lawyer for William Husel, DO, the Ohio physician facing wrongful death suits after ordering potentially fatal doses of painkillers to dozens of patients, argued that his client is immune from civil litigation under state laws that protect physicians who act “in good faith and in accordance with reasonable medical standards.” (Columbus Dispatch)
In Texas, a civil suit charged two forensic pathologists with taking body parts from a dead child without permission and shipping the tissue to their San Diego headquarters because of a “particular administrative interest” (the girl’s parents were convicted years earlier of abusing her). The suit follows accusations by a former coroner’s office employee that she was fired for raising concerns about the methods in which the physicians were harvesting children’s organs. (EverythingLubbock.com, Calgary Herald)
A California chiropractor was sentenced to prison for his role in a $200-million kickback scheme involving dozens of lawyers, doctors, and other medical professionals who were said to be “buying and selling patients.” Needless tests and “sometimes painful” procedures were performed on the patients and then billed under worker’s compensation. (Imperial Valley News)
A Montenegrin immigrant with an expired visa was arrested in Michigan for performing dental procedures for money without a license, allegedly running an “elaborate setup” out of his basement. His lawyer said he was a doctor in Montenegro and not some “monster off the street.” (Detroit Free Press)
A former physician whose license was revoked in 2016 was arrested in Florida on child pornography charges. Police said a CVS employee found offending images of children in his photo order and a search of the man’s home turned up additional images. (WINK News)
After the FBI raided South Carolina-based pain clinics in three cities last October, federal agents are now investigating the parent company and its owner for allegedly improperly billing unnecessary care involving opioid prescriptions and urine drug testing to Medicare and Medicaid. (WSPA)
Source: MedicalNewsToday.com
